In preparation of  the launch of LMI BIcalculator and LMI RiskCoach in the United States next month,  The US Patent and Trademark's Office has, granted a Trade Mark on our popular "Flame" logo. This follows the logo being trade marked in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.

"Our brand and all it stands for is extremely important to us at LMI and it follows that we want to protect the intellectural property surronding it" explained  Director Steven Manning.

BIcalculator.com will be launched at the RIMS (Risk Insurance Manager Society) Conference in Philadelphia on 24 March 2017.  

As the US do things slightly different to the rest of the English speaking world when it comes to insurance, the development of the US versions has meant a great deal of work for the IT and LMI Forensic teams.

Before launching anything in the US it was important for us to protect our logo and intellectural property and after working on it for nearly a year, we were pleased to receive the Trade Mark certificate today from the US Patents and Trademark Office.

We ran with the project after initial advice from lawyers specialising in Intellectaul Property ("IP") protection in the US and Australia. The process did get slowed down when one of the major US insurers, or their lawyers to be technically correct, put up an objection on the very last day of the objection period. We nevertheless worked through their concerns explaining a) we were not competing with them in any shape or form and in fact where assisting them in educationg customers and getting the sums insured right which would only be to their advantage and b) our logo looked absolutely nothing like theirs!

At the end of the day, reason won out and the all important trade mark has been granted with us receiving the official certificate today. After all that we went through the board at LMI Group will certainly will be having a little celebration tonight!

We already have the logo and serveral of our products trade marked in Australia, New Zealand and the United States.

Protecting your intellectual property is something that all businesses need to consider and obtaining the trade mark was seen as a key step for us in doing so.

While LMI Legal did a great job for us, their expertise is in insurance and I would recommend Millens in Melbourne who have an expert in IP in their team and who helped us with the unexpected objection and gave us advice that we followed and that worked in getting our certificate.

We continue now with innovation patterns on all our products were appropriate. 

It certainly has been a very hectic year already with the launch of LMI BASIC in the UK last month, LMI RiskCoach on the Go later this week, the launch of the two US versions next month as just explained and major new releases on many of LMI's other eServices later in the year. Watch this space for more details!